Reading to Understand

One of the most common reasons for reading in college is to understand information.
You might read for comprehension before taking a test in your biology class; you might
read to understand an article before you write an essay in your English class. It's
important that you have a strong selection of reading strategies for reading comprehension
since understanding what you've read is the foundation for good writing...and good
learning.

(During Your Reading)

What Is Annotation?

Simply defined, an annotation is a note or comment. The act of annotating a text is making comments in the margins
of your reading. What lines you choose to annotate, and what comments you choose to
make will often depend on the purpose you have for reading the text.

Your purposes for reading a text in an academic setting might include learning about
a topic, preparing for tests, and preparing to write a paper—in addition to personal
growth and enjoyment.

Underlining in Combination with Annotation

Underlining words or sentences helps you identify important sections to return to
later. However, it’s difficult to remember the reason you underlined a part of the
text when you skim through the reading a second time. Annotation will help you identify
different types of lines that suit different purposes. It will also help you engage
in active reading.

Annotation and Active Reading

When you annotate a text, you start a dialogue with the author. You might be asking
a question in the margins: “What are you saying?” or “Where is your proof?” You might
be responding with your own experiences: “So true!” or “My friends, too!” Your interaction
with the text helps you pay more attention to the reading and adds your own perspective.
You are actively considering the meaning of the text and its implications. This active
reading will not only help you understand a text, but it will help you generate your
own ideas.

Strong, Hard, and Weak Lines

While you're reading, you might not have time to write long annotations in the margins.
Instead, you can make quick annotations to review later. Use the following shorthand
to help you identify lines that are important, difficult, or unconvincing: Strong
Lines (!) Hard Lines (?) Weak Lines (X).

Strong Lines (!): In the margin of your text, write an exclamation point next to any important, well-written,
or interesting lines that illuminate the ideas or fulfill one of your purposes for
reading. This might also apply to lines that remind you of personal experiences or
personal knowledge. It’s sometimes helpful to have a little more information to remind
you why you considered a line “strong.” Here are some example annotations with additional
information: Me too! Good Pt! Wow! Love this! Quote! Main idea! Beautiful!

Hard Lines (?): These are lines that are difficult to understand. Try re-reading them, and if you
still have trouble, write a question mark next to them in the margin. Then move on.
When you're done with the chapter, go back to the hard lines and try to figure them
out. You might also use your class’s online posting area to discuss the meaning of
such lines, or bring them up in an in-class discussion. Finding out what these lines
mean and how to get meaning from them will improve your reading ability. Often, the
most important ideas in a text are the hardest to understand because they present
new concepts or sophisticated ideas. In other cases, you might simply need to look
up a vocabulary word. Here are a few example “hard line” annotations: Vocab.? Huh?
Who said this? Who cares? Yikes?

Weak Lines (X): Use an "X" next to lines that are not true to your life experience or knowledge or
a concept that you would like to challenge. It's a good idea to use one or two words
that remind you of what differs in your experience, like "X, Jennifer and Matt," which
means remember how Jennifer and Matt’s example differs from what the text says. Here
are some other examples: Not true X No proof X Not me X Really X What about Congress
(or some information that’s excluded by the author) X

Customize: You might choose a custom shorthand to meet your own reading needs. For example,
imagine you know that you will need to write about the psychological insights made
by the author throughout the book; you might choose to write PSY every time you read
a psychological insight. Sometimes, you discover your purpose for reading while you
are reading—you discover a topic that interests you, such as symbolism, and you create
your own short-hand at that time, like SYMB. You could also put an asterisk in the
top corner of every page that has a line you might use so that you can skim through
the book more quickly.

A thoughtful or inspired reader might write more in a journal after the reading, referring
to annotated lines.

(During and After Your Reading)

Sometimes when you buy a used college textbook from the bookstore, you’ll see entire
chapters color-coded by bright highlighters. However, highlighters aren’t all they’re
cracked up to be, and if you rely on someone else’s notes, you’re missing the whole
point of note-taking. It’s better to use a pen since you can focus your note-taking
on what you want to learn from a text or what your main purpose might be.

A text might be difficult for you, especially if the language is complex. Understanding
what the words mean in a text is imperative for understanding the text as a whole.
If you’re unable to use context clues to understand difficult words, you can keep
track of the words in many ways. One of the not-so-great ways to understand vocabulary is to pause midstream with your reading and look up
the word in the dictionary. That might be a strategy you learned in elementary school,
but stopping to look up words will inhibit your reading comprehension. Better to save
the word discovery for later, or when you skim/scan the text on the first go-round,
you can jot down words you aren't familiar with and start with finding the definitions
before you begin reading.

Annotate and keep track of any unfamiliar words:

First, decide how you want to keep track of words you don’t understand. You could
start a list on a piece of paper, circle or highlight vocabulary words, or write the
words in the margins of your book

When you have your list from a certain section of text, you can dig in deeper to find
out the meaning:

Look up the words in your dictionary

Use context clues (the words around your word) to figure out the meaning

Look later in the passage to see if the author uses illustrative words to explain your word

Be logical and think about the etymology or word’s construction (e.g. if you don’t know what “subordination” means, think
about only half of the word: “sub-” is a prefix that has to do with being under something,
like a submarine; “ordination” has to do with order; therefore, “subordination” means
one thing being under another)

Build your vocabulary by being proactive about its development:

Keep a list of words that you learn the definitions of

Play word games on your phone/computer or use an app to receive notifications with a “Word of the Day”

Read often and across genres because research shows that strong readers have the best vocabularies
and vice-versa

Use word association to create visual images of words (e.g. to remember a word like “subordination,” imagine a submarine positioned below
the water's surface; enlarge that image in your mind and repeat it multiple times
until it sticks)

Read for fun because the more words your brain sees, the broader your vocabulary

Here are a few of the common words to pay attention to along with their meanings:

Remember that understanding the words an author uses doesn’t only involve complicated
or unknown words. You can use words that are common and repeated to better understand
a text; it’s just a matter of noticing them and knowing why the author used them.
Sometimes the most helpful words are the prepositions and conjunctions that guide
your mind along the pathways of the author’s ideas. Master these words and phrases
and you will almost immediately become a better reader.